About Bruce Canwell

Author Archive | Bruce Canwell

We continue to honor the late Mike Esposito, who passed away at the end of October, by publishing the second excerpt from my 2009 interview with him. Mr. Esposito and I spoke in support of our upcoming release, Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, and we return to the interview at the beginning of a wide-ranging conversation about Alex:

ME: As far as Toth goes, he was good right to the end. I get the Alter Ego magazine – he did a lot of articles for Jim Amash.

LOAC: Yeah, he really kept his interest in the field down through the years … and he definitely wasn’t shy with his opinions!

ME: Yeah, but he had the right to ’em, he was a real veteran …

LOAC: Sure.

ME: But you’re right about that. And all his articles and notes, every little thing, he would letter it himself – he wouldn’t write it, he would print it. And he had a way of lettering … he would have been a great full-time letterer, he had that knack. When you see my lettering it’s so sloppy, when I write a note to somebody or something. But he had control right to the end of his life. I used to see those little articles of his in Alter Ego – amazing! I couldn’t help but admire him for it. But I didn’t know he died so young. I never knew he was that sick.

LOAC: Well, the medical problems began, and they mounted up. And maybe he wasn’t as quick to get help as he should have been. But years before that, his wife passed away before him and that affected him, as well.

ME: Sure. Did he have any children?

LOAC: Yes, he had four children, two girls, two boys.

ME: I didn’t know that.

LOAC: Actually, we’re working with the kids, we’re doing the book with their approval, and we’re working with them …

ME: What about talent-wise? Are they art-interested?

LOAC: None of them have followed in his footsteps, obviously, but some of them work in design and photography, and there are grandchildren …

ME: That’s what I meant. Sometimes it steers toward music, sometimes it steers toward acting, but it all comes from the creative spark that gets passed along.

LOAC: Let me ask you a quick question in another area. I saw some of the stuff that you and [lifelong artistic partner, penciler] Ross [Andru] had done at Standard, some pages from Joe Yank…

ME: Oh, yeah . . .

LOAC: It seemed to me that in some of that work, the two of you were going for a Toth-like look.

ME: Oh, definitely! Ross realized that he would overwork too much, and he tried to get a more visually-readable look to his stuff. Like the way Toth would do it, with the faces, the layouts, the backgrounds, and the figures in the foregrounds.

LOAC: One of the guys who inked a lot of Toth’s work, especially at Standard, was Mike Peppe. And Peppe was the art director there, too, right?

ME: Sure, sure. You know, he wanted to ink Ross. Ross had an argument with him. He said to Ross, “I want to do your inking,” and Ross said to Peppe, “No, Mike’s my partner for life.” We were kids, Ross and I, we grew up together, all the way through high school, the Music and Art High School. He said, “Partners for life.” Ross was young, and an up-and-comer, but he said, “No.” Peppe was actually shocked.

LOAC: Sure. In most businesses, there’s not a lot of that kind of loyalty.

ME: You’re right. But sometimes loyalty is because of your own insecurity.

LOAC: That’s true.

ME: Ross might have been more comfortable with me because he knew me from when we were kids – he trusted me.

LOAC: When you get a good working relationship together … if it’s not broke, why fix it?

We at The Library of American Comics were saddened by the news of Mike Esposito’s passing on October 24th of this year, at the age of eighty-three. Mike was a mainstay of the comic book industry from the 1950s to the 1990s. During his career Mike produced material for companies including Fiction House, EC, National/DC (Metal Men, Wonder Woman, and a plethora of war stories), Standard (Joe Yank), Skywald, and Marvel (touching most of that company’s Silver Age characters under a handful of pseudonyms, with notable runs on several Spider-Man titles), retiring at the end of the 20th Century following several years of steady work for Archie Comics.

Of course, Mike was best known for inking the work of his lifelong friend, Ross Andru. In addition to producing thousands of pages of comic book art, the “Mikeross” team packaged comics and dabbled in publishing during both the 1950s and early 1970s.

I conducted a telephone interview with Mr. Esposito in 2009 as part of our research work for the upcoming Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. I found him personable and opinionated, very open and knowledgeable; it was my distinct pleasure to have spoken with him. I’ve extracted the quotes I need from the interview for my Genius, Isolated text, but that leaves a significant amount of our discussion “on the cutting room floor.”

To pay our respects, The Library of American Comics will run the remainder of my interview with Mike Esposito in this space over three installments. We’ll run the text in Q&A format (unusual for us) to allow you to “hear” Mike in his own words.

We hope you’ll find what he has to say as entertaining and interesting as we did.

LOAC: Mr. Esposito? My name is Bruce Canwell, and mutual friends tell me you might be interested in talking a little bit about Alex with me.

ME: Well, I don’t have too much time I spent with Alex. I can only tell you what a great artist he was. Ross [Andru], my partner at the time, when we were young – Ross Andru loved Toth’s stuff, because Toth developed that decorative look, that two-dimensional look, which Ross didn’t understand when he was starting out.

Ross would overwork – when he saw the stuff up at Standard Comics, he realized the approach would be almost like props on a stage, the flat, decorative look. Two-dimensional – but it wasn’ttwo-dimensional, it was – the design was two-dimensional, but the way Toth did it, he brought depth to it.

When he did stuff for Dell Comics, it was unbelievable. Stuff like Zorro … I couldn’t believe his stuff. And I remember him when I was a young feller, up at DC. I was a young inker with Ross, working for Bob Kanigher, and Toth’s stuff was really unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

LOAC: Right, Alex did work with Kanigher.

ME: Oh, yeah. And he worked for Julius Schwartz …

LOAC: And before him, Shelley Mayer.

ME: And I think [Murray] Boltinoff, he did some work for. He was good. Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much to do with one another, but artistically, what he did … as an artist myself, I couldn’t help but appreciate what he did. He was really, really way ahead of any of the other guys.

LOAC: Right. He was a major reason DC moderated their very quiet, Dan Barry “look” from that period …

ME: At DC, Toth did some great stuff. The Westerns – I loved the way he handled horses, and he was almost Caniff-like in his design. That’s before he got decorative. That’s when he was doing complete drawings.

LOAC: Sure – he was a big fan of both Caniff and Noel Sickles.

ME: Right, right! That’s where everybody stemmed from, that period. That’s why guys like Frank Miller became so famous, later, in that psychedelic look up at Marvel. Ross, myself, Johnny Romita – we came from the schools of Sickles and Caniff when they drew differently. Now let’s face it, Frank Miller is great, but it doesn’t have the warmth … it’s not warm. It doesn’t have the warmth of the ’40s and ’50s. But you can’t knock the guy – big movie director . . .

LOAC: Exactly right. He’s done pretty well for himself.

ME: I would say so. It’s just that, you develop a taste from over the years, back when you were young, and you can’t accept some of that psychedelic approach. Today, when I look at a comic book – I get ’em in the mail, I get ’em from Marvel and from DC, and when I see ’em, I say, “Gee, we didn’t think this way!” It’s so psychedelic — I use the word “psychedelic,” because … I don’t know if you know what I mean by “psychedelic” …

LOAC: Yeah, I think so – there’s such a sense of design in every page …

ME: Right, right, right! It’s hard to read! It’s got noise. I should use the word “noise” over “psychedelic” – it’s screaming, it’s not quiet. When you look at John Buscema when he did the ant and the giant-girl – I did a couple stories with him on that, The Avengers. It’s so beautifully delineated on the page. Now, it’s very graphically different. But hey – the whole world takes a different look!

My first job was in radio broadcasting. I started as a copywriter at the top-rated album-rock station in my home state, 100,000-watt WIGY-FM. Today – last I heard, anyway – WIGY is an all-religious station, but back in the day we played (and sometimes helped make) Top 40 hits, mixed with album cuts and plenty of standards. Jack O’Brien, our program director, would sing along in the studio every time he played Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and never stumbled over a syllable, even when he was doing Phil Rizutto’s staccato play-by-play part. Believe it or not, our midday man was named Steve Rogers. Our morning drive jock, Bob Anderson, was a thorough-going professional and one of the funniest persons it has ever been my pleasure to know.

We did some fantastic promotions at WIGY. I caught for the station softball team and coached the basketball team (it was a great chance to do my Tommy Heinsohn impersonation, tossing my clipboard and jawing at the refs). We staged a “fantasy day parade” in the studio that sounded so realistic, police officials in the towns we had announced on our route were calling the station to ask if they should put officers at key intersections to handle traffic control. The jocks took over the station on July 4th, declaring their independence and playing whatever music they wanted to play. For years, I never watched the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati – I was living WKRP in Cincinnati.

Like everything else, radio has changed a lot since those days. I’ll get a small taste of how it’s changed starting at 3PM Friday, October 29, 2010, when I’m Scott Katz’s guest on his Internet radio show at www.ustownhall.com.

WIGY’s evening jock, wild-man Willie Mitchell, won’t be on hand to do two-man shtick with me, but Scott and I will be talking classic comics in general and The Library of American Comics in particular. The odds are mighty good we’ll discuss “coming soon” attractions such as Polly and Her Pals, popular favorites like Bloom County, eagerly-anticipated upcoming projects (including our Alex Toth biography, Genius Isolated), plus a sneak-peek at what to look for from LOAC as 2011 unfolds.

If you haven’t been to www.ustownhall.com, why not zip over and take a look? Extensive coverage of the New York Comic Con is available on-site, including a photo gallery containing a snapshot of Dean Mullaney and me manning the LOAC section of the IDW booth. And our resident expert on all things Dick Tracy, Max Allan Collins, has already appeared on Scott’s radio program; you’ll find a link to their interview, so be sure to listen to that informative and entertaining segment.

In my WIGY days, a lot of us talked about being, “The king of the tunes, the duke of the doo-wahs, the man with the stacks of hot wax.” Though I still have my FCC license, I won’t be playing any Warren Zevon or Rolling Stones, but I’m definitely looking forward to my return to radio!

I’m dialing in to talk with Scott Katz of www.ustownhall.com at 3PM on Friday, October 29th. Check the site to hear the show …

Note his extra-curly hair and pupil-less eyes. I warned him not to eat that bagel leftover from Friday morning, but would he listen to me? Noooo-o-o-o …

• Guess which ultra-talented, ultra-cool, ultra-popular artist walked into the IDW booth on Sunday carrying a green satchel bearing the shamrocked logo of the winningest team in NBA history? Though we’d never previously met, that satchel prompted me to immediately approach him, introduce myself, and say, “Celtics, bay-bee!” To which he affirmed: “Celtics rule!”

• Very gratifying that Jim Steranko remembered we had once talked about the possibility of my working for him on his media magazine, Prevue. Some team-ups are meant to be: we combined efforts on 2008’s Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles. Made my day when Jim grinned and said, “We finally gave Scorchy the treatment it deserves!”

• Biggest surprise: getting the opportunity to meet Nicky Brown, granddaughter of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (see our Monday, October 4th entry, “Two Birds, One Blog”). Nicky is, as the old saying goes, a real pistol, and I had such fun getting to know her. You can read more about her famous grandfather at: http://majormalcolmwheelernicholson.com/wordpress/.

• Biggest disappointment: I failed to meet up with pals-via-keyboard Jeff Vaughn and Joey Cavalieri. Sorry to have missed you, gents!

• Because so many industry giants are helping us with Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, the project grows bigger and grander every day. Once again, Jim Steranko has provided invaluable assistance; I also got to spend time with Irwin Hasen — who was among the first persons I interviewed for the project — and Joe Kubert, who spoke with me about Alex scarcely a week before the convention. With contributions from titans like this (and Ruben Procopio, and James Robinson, and so many others), Genius, Isolated is on track to be the most ambitious project ever published under The Library of American Comics banner.

• What a deee-light to catch up with Dauntless Don McGregor on Saturday! They broke the mold when they made Don, and I was pleased to be able to tell him I’d recently finished re-reading his groundbreaking Black Panther issues, collected by editor Cory Sedlmeier in a lovely Marvel Masterworks edition. As a boy I read those stories when they were first published; if memory serves, both Dean and my by-lines appeared in the Jungle Action letters column during that run.

…And you! If you stopped by the Library of American Comics area and talked to us about our line of books in particular or the great comic strips of the past in general, it was a pleasure to speak with you. My voice is still raspy as a result, but it was well worth it!

During the recent LOAC mini-summit in Boston’s Back Bay, Lorraine Turner suggested that a good topic for this space would be a discussion of the questions readers might ask about my job.

I admit, I’m still mulling over how to address that topic – writing is a solitary pursuit, after all. In addition, years ago a close friend said, “People don’t want to read about writers.” I recalled my high school freshman English class rebelling halfway through John Steinbeck’s autobiographicalTravels with Charley: hmmm-m-m – maybe my friend was on to something. I don’t entirely agree with him, but I’ve come to believe it takes a writer as dynamic and entertaining as, say, Harlan Ellison to successfully fracture my friend’s rule of thumb. I have enough ego to think I do a pretty decent job of putting words into print, but let’s be honest: an Ellison I ain’t.

Recently, however, I finished reading a slender volume worth recommending to you that will also allow me to reflect a bit about how I approach my text features for LOAC titles. Submitted for your approval: Our Hero – Superman on Earth, by Tom DeHaven.

Our Hero examines Superman’s history, his growth and evolution as a cultural icon, and his major appearances in media outside the comics (the movie serials and feature films, the live-action and animated TV series, the Broadway musical). It offers an insightful look at many of the key creators behind the Big Red S’s comics adventures – with emphasis, of course, on the amazing saga of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

I’m a long-time DeHaven reader – his novel Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies is an outstanding recreation of the Golden Age of Comic Strips and is also well worth reading – but my efforts for LOAC would put me on the side of Our Hero even if I had never previously read anything by this fine writer. The sheer volume of information DeHaven researched, read, distilled, and organized into a cohesive whole is staggering. I have a first-hand appreciation for this sort of thing, of course, and my reaction as I made my way through the book was consistently the same: “Wow!” DeHaven provides significant new information about pulp-era impresario Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, provided by the Major’s granddaughter, Nicky Brown – fascinating, not-to-be-missed stuff. And there are photos and illustrations sprinkled throughout the essay’s 206 pages.

The book is hardly all facts ‘n’ figures. Rather, it’s a fast-paced, engaging, thoughtful assessment of the Man of Tomorrow, sprinkled with personal reflections that are insightful or humorous, sometimes both at the same time. Here is DeHaven on the gestation of the Broadway play, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman:

The songwriting team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, who’d been successful with Bye Bye Birdie in 1960 and the musical adaptation of Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy in 1964, were looking for a next project when they asked magazine writers David Newman and Robert Benton … did they have any good ideas? It was Newman’s wife, Leslie, who suggested Superman after picking up a bunch of Action Comics from their kid’s bedroom floor. Newman and Benton thought it an inspired recommendation – this was, after all, the Pop Art era of Warhol lithographs and Lichtenstein paintings – and so did Strouse and Adams. Although usually it had taken the composers at least two years to write a score, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman was finished in just thirteen months.

After listening half a dozen times to the original cast recording, available again on CD, I think maybe they should’ve taken those extra eleven months …

• • • • •

Another reason Our Hero resonates with me? DeHaven does something I continually strive to do in my LOAC work: he has found the story that makes the information compelling, and he does his usual excellent job of telling that story. No matter how impressive the research and how revelatory the new information brought to light, when an essay is written in the manner of an eighth grade social studies paper, my interest quickly wanes and I start asking myself why I’m spending my all-too-precious reading time on a snoozefest when I could be reading one of the John D. MacDonald paperback originals beckoning me from my To Be Read shelves.

Fortunately, LOAC books don’t put me in that frame of mind: our writing staff consistently delivers the goods. Jeet Heer knows how to entertain readers while he makes us all smarter about Harold Gray, Orphan Annie, and the worlds in which they both inhabit; you’ll soon enjoy the distinctive Heer touch in our first Polly and Her Pals volume, as well. Meanwhile, over in Rip Kirby, a lifetime spent inside the comics industry allows Brian Walker to write about Alex Raymond and Der Ripper with great confidence, while his work in Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Seahelped that book earn its Eisner nomination.

And me? I do my thing, striving to make readers want to keep turning the pages. I don’t want a future high school freshman English class to rebel against one of my essays the way my English class rebelled against Travels with Charley…

I never set out to collect original art, but over the years I’ve amassed a couple dozen pieces, all of which I’ve had matted and framed for display. I have my share of other, mass-produced items hanging, as well. The Graffiti Designs poster of James Bama’s cover for the Doc Savage supersaga The Monsters was a must-have, as was the Mike Kaluta poster, “The Shadow Ablaze.” And how could I pass up this classic shot of The Kid, smacking a home run in his first at-bat of the 1947 season:

(Sorry, all you fans of Barry Bonds, Josh Hamilton, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, or any other masher you can list – four decades after he hung up his cleats, the incomparable Ted Williams remains the greatest hitter who ever lived.)

First-time visitors to my humble abode acknowledge the posters and photos, yet they linger over the originals. Some sketches were bought strictly out of fan appreciation – a Gil Kane Green Lantern; a color head shot of The Thing from “Mr. FF,” Joe Sinnott; a magical, mystical Doctor Strange by that painter with a pencil, Gene Colan.

Two big frames in my living room contain mementos from my own comic stories. In the late 1990s, some might recall, I spent several months writing freelance for DC Comics, arriving on the scene just in time for the business to take a major nosedive (the speculator bubble popped; Marvel Comics filed for bankruptcy protection), but before the work dried up underneath me I teamed with my old friend, Lee Weeks, on the graphic novel Batman: The Gauntlet and had my “Huntress” short story for the Batman Chronicles anthology title illustrated by Jim Aparo. I’m pleased to own two pages from each of those stories and am proud to have worked with both those talented gentlemen.

Some too-generous friends have given me several originals, including a very wonderful Olive Oyl profile shot rescued from a waste paper basket at the Fleischer Studios by a member of the production staff and later sold at an Atlanta Fantasy Fair. Color notations around the edge of the piece lend one to believe this was put together for one of the three Fleischer two-reelers, the only color Popeye work they produced.

As LOAC was building up its head of steam, I decided to keep my eyes open for select originals from some of our books. I wasn’t about to break the bank (my prudent Scots heritage at work again), but for the right price I was willing to dabble in the original market.

The few Scorchy Smiths I found were priced well beyond the amount I was willing to pay, meaning I still have no original Noel Sickles piece. Yet I was lucky enough to snag a daily from his artistic stable-mate’s greatest creation:

Yes, that’s the March 11, ’39 Terry and the Pirates, as the “Indo-China” sequence rushes to its climax. Milton Caniff had been hospitalized at the start of this storyline; many believe Sickles assisted his close friend throughout, to help him get back on schedule. Look at the foliage in the background of that last panel and judge for yourself, but some of my friends believe I own both Caniff and Sickles work in this one strip …

Not long after acquiring the Terry, lightning struck again and I procured this, the February 23, 1953 Rip Kirby daily.

While Rip is nowhere to be seen, I’m a Honey Dorian fan, so owning a daily featuring Honey is fine by me. Raymond’s exacting, confident rendering continues to delight.

If you’ve read my text in King Aroo Volume 1, you’ve likely figured out I’m a big fan of the strip (and you are, too – right?). It was a red-letter day when I was able to land this January 30, 1960 Aroo original:

The seller told me he was a Jack Kent fan, parting with the strip only reluctantly in order to raise money that would help him in a financial pinch. I sent him a copy of King Aroo when it went on sale – perhaps the seller having Kent strips in quantity at least partially counterbalanced his having parted with this original? I can only hope so.

Bringing Up Father led me a merry chase indeed. Four or five times I chased a McManus/ZekleyBUF only to come up short. In mid-summer, however, opportunity knocked and I opened the door…

I’m mighty happy to have added this to my handful of original art. There’s Jiggs – there’s Maggie – there’s the Deco motif – there’s the surreal little background figure cutting capers. A neat, representative sampling of the best elements of this long-running strip.

As you might expect, I’ve become a familiar figure at my local framers over the fifteen years I’ve lived at my current residence. Here’s a heads-up, Brian and Sally, if you’re reading this – I’ll soon be coming through the door to ask you to work your magic so I can add Bringing Up Father to the other pieces of art on my walls!

It was a great honor to have our Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea nominated for a 2010 Eisner Award. There can be only one winner in each category, and BUF did not take home the trophy (Bloom County, our other entry in the awards, did win—yay!) but we gained a lot of satisfaction from the Eisner committee’s recognition of the fabulous work of George McManus and his long-time assistant, Zeke Zekley.

As usual, our research into the history of the strip and its creators blended details from well-known sources with newly-uncovered information and rare photographs. In studying the life of George McManus for BUF: FStSS, I bought all three issues of the early 1950s Collier‘s Magazine that featured the artist’s autobiographical musings. My research also uncovered birth records from the City of St. Louis that provided, for the first time, clear-cut proof of the date McManus came into this world (Geo. McM. himself often played fast and loose with that information). I was also fascinated to find McManus remained in the news after his passing – wire services and several newspapers followed the story Zeke Zekley going to court to contest McManus’s will. This was fresh information to even some of the art form’s most erudite scholars.

From Sea to Shining Sea also brought what is, to my knowledge, unprecedented (but much deserved) attention to the accomplishments of Zeke Zekley. It was the cooperation of comics historian and Zekley acquaintance Chris Jenson, as well as interviews with Zekley’s descendants, that made possible this coverage.

Now, presented for your viewing pleasure, here are a half-dozen additional photographs of George and Zeke. They came to us courtesy of David Folkman, of Hogan’s Alley fame, who was very close to Zeke for many years.

First up, McManus and the Zekleys chow down Hollywood-style, accompanied by actress Renie Riano, who played Maggie in five Bringing Up Father motion pictures:

If this next photo is any indication, McManus gravitated toward the lovely ladies as much as did his strip’s hero, Jiggs. Though surrounded by fellow cartoonists, notice George is chatting with Zeke’s wife, Anita Zekley.

Cartoonists have a long and notable history of doing their bit for Uncle Sam. Here’s Zeke (third from left) standing next to Dennis the Menace’s Hank Ketcham at a U.S. Savings Bond event that included cartoonists Chic (Blondie) Young, Gus Edson (Dondi), Milt Gross, Ferd Johnson, Dan (Hopalong Cassidy) Spiegle, and several others.

McManus moved in the same circles with artist Jimmy Swinnerton, another favorite of William Randolph Hearst (the newspaper mogul who was the prime mover and shaker behind King Features Syndicate). Here, George and Swinny share a laugh:

And here they participate in a U.S. Treasury event. Two things to call to your attention: [1] at far-right is George’s brother, Leo McManus, who worked for many years at King Features. [2] Notice with whom George is shaking hands – none other than Walt Disney, himself!

Finally – my lifelong love of Popeye is well known amongst my social circle, but have you ever seen a sorrier version of that spinach-eating gazookas than the one in this 1949 photo?

Zeke and Otto (The Little King) Soglow appear to be massaging Popeye’s flaccid right arm muscles while McManus gives the squinky-eyed sailor a pep talk. Fred Lasswell (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith) may be wondering if even a can of spinach would be enough to help this guy whip Bluto.

You may also want to take a look at Popeye’s pants. Could it be that E.C. Segar’s inspired creation invented the “low-riders” so prominently worn around today’s schools and malls?

One of the absolute truisms of studying comics history: no matter how much we uncover, there is always more to be learned!

If you’ll allow me this brief diversion, I’d like to introduce you to my new nephew, Henry. He’s the first for my younger sister and her husband, born in April at nine pounds and twenty-one inches long. In the weeks since, he’s been thriving, having developed a ready smile and as sunny a disposition as an infant can display.

I’d like to say I played some role in making him that happy, but his mom and dad deserve all the credit.

One of the things I do hope I can give the not-so-little guy in the years ahead is an introduction to the classic comic strips we all know and love. Certainly there are Library of American Comics volumes to capture his interest as he grows up. The funny animals of King Aroo might make him laugh in his early school years—in his “tween” years, he may get swept away by the exotic adventure of Terry and the Pirates and our upcoming Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim—and by the time he’s a teenager, the sophisticated sleuthing of Rip Kirby or outrageous comedy of Bloom Countycould catch his fancy.

Of course, his interests may develop along entirely different lines…and that’s OK. We all get to pick our own path, which is how it’s supposed to be. I won’t push anything on him—but if he expresses interest in any of the LOAC books on his parents’ shelves, he’ll know who to talk to in order to learn more about them!

Sometimes we receive more artwork than we can comfortably fit into our books and are forced to offer only a representative sampling from a given period in an artist’s career. That was the case with Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles – though readers and reviewers told us we provided enough treasures so they didn’t exactly feel short-changed!

Still, while sifting through one of my file cabinets earlier this month, I happened to find a batch of spot drawings Sickles did as part of his first regular paying gig as a cartoonist. In 1925, while in his mid-teens, Sickles created artwork for the Mead Co-operation, the house organ for the Mead Corporation’s paper plant in his native Chillicothe, Ohio. In Scorchy we ran examples of “Bud’s” regular features for the newsletter – “Bud’s Meaco Comics” and “What’s Wrong?”. Here are a half-dozen non-series, standalone drawings Sickles produced for the Co-operation. First up, from February of 1925 – the first known Sickles illustration for Mead, a comedic rendering of one of the company’s employees who was a radio buff in his off-hours:

In April, Sickles produced the “Bet Your Money on Mead” cartoon to illustrate an article chronicling the safety competition being staged between Mead and another area manufacturer. He also did a small illo to accompany an article about an employee’s victory in the local pool hall, and the comedic consequences of his win.

Humorous anecdotes about Mead employees were a standing feature in the Co-operation – it was easier for people to laugh at themselves in the ’20s than it is today. May saw Sickles generating chuckles about a first-class auto aficionado.

Workplace safety was a key theme in Bud’s cartoons for Mead. This “split screen” piece conveys that message as it illustrates two possible meanings of the same phrase. One wonders if Sickles realized both the Mead worker and the barber need to exercise caution on their respective jobs?The end of the year brought both the holidays and rabbit hunting season to Ohio. The Sickles “panoramic bird’s-eye view” cartoon below pokes fun at Chillicothe’s seemingly-plentiful supply of Elmer Fudds . . .

Looking at these very early Sickles pieces, one sees little sign of the skilled artist who would revolutionize comics storytelling in Scorchy Smith, create such spectacular illustrations as “The Old Man’s Bride” or the “Crete Invasion” series, and finish his career by producing a series of wonderful Western paintings. Still, they remind us of three truths:

[1] Everyone has to start somewhere.
[2] We learn by doing.
[3] Stay true to your dreams and mastery and success are likely to come your way…